Monday, January 23, 2012

Taking Profits, Cutting Losses

No, I still hate Mondays.

New England Patriots in Rematch with New York Giants
The New York football Giants beat a very good San Francisco team that made two major fumble errors in the game. The New England Patriots overcame numerous mistakes as the Baltimore Ravens missed a game tying field goal at the end of regulation.

And now it's the big Superbowl rematch. Just unreal.

Taking Profits, Cutting Losses
Last Tuesday I bought some stocks after screening and things were looking good overall coming into Monday. I closed all four positions today for various reasons. Two will highlight in tonight's blog. The other two were INTU (+1.2%) and ANSS (+4%). Nothing wrong with either name and I will revisit INTU for long term account, just grabbing some profits.

I had high hopes for the position in NXTM. Friday the stock was hit and this morning it started off ugly and went down fast from there. Having stops in place is always important and I was stopped out fast at around $18 for a -1.1% loss on the trade. It got worse from there with a big drop all day long. The move down retraced most of the good move up I was seeing. While it has not violated the hammer print on 1/12/12 there are many names moving well now and I saw no reason to hang around on this one:

Know your exits.

My last trade was CRESY and this one really worked out well. Traded to plan and expectations. Have to love when that happens!:

Breaking out of the triangle I had a target of $13 on this name and it overshot that a bit this morning. I closed the trade out for +10.5%.

Overall, markets needed a break today and I may stay in cash until I see what Boom Boom Bernanke has to say on Wednesday. There is also AAPL earnings tomorrow that can really affect things. Overall 2012 has been way more constructive than the last months of 2011.

4 comments:

I told you last week that it would be the Giants and the Patriots in the Super Bowl. New York is peaking at just the right time, and playing very good defense I might add.

Defense wins championships. I know, it's an old saying, but it's true. Up-front pressure gets into a quarterback's head. But Tom Brady is playing exceptional football, so this, the ultimate revenge game, is going to be a contest. The hype will be extraordinary.

I'm glad you taking profits and cutting losses. That is the way to go, but then I've been all cash all of my life, so what do I know about investing in stocks? Not much.